The Computing Science Association (COMPSA) hosted an open forum for Presidential candidate Danielle Edward (Comp ’21) and Vice-President (Student Affairs) candidate Flora Lin (Comp ’22) at Goodwin Hall on Jan. 30.

While there was no student turnout at the open forum, COMPSA live-streamed the event on Facebook. Though uncontested in this year’s race, Edward and Lin presented new visions for the upcoming year.

Edward began by addressing the three main pillars of her platform: strengthening relationships with other faculty societies, improving resources, and changing marketing strategies to build connections with first-year students.

“I wish to just improve our relations because we shouldn’t seclude ourselves to just communicating with other computer science students,” Edward said. “As much as being around like-minded people is great, we want diversity and want to be connected with other people.”

Edward said she wants to transition COMPSA into a “resource-based place for computer science students.” She said she hopes to make academic, financial, and mental health resources available to all students in the society.

“I wish to interact more with the younger years,” she said. Edward said she also wants to use more aggressive marketing tactics to become increase involvement with younger students.

In order to get more first-year students involved, Edward used examples like COMPSA Orientation Week and other faculty social events.

In response to a question about whether they want “evolution” or “revolution” for the Society, Edward chose evolution. “I see there isn’t anything inherently wrong with what is going on now. There’s only small things that we can improve upon,” she said.

Similarly, for the position of Vice-President (Student Affairs), Lin outlined the issues she wishes to tackle if elected. Some of these issues include mental health and professional development, and specifically, working with alumni.

“I think that by pulling together all our resources, it would be an amazing way to develop our students into strong software developers,” she said.

Prior to running for COMPSA Vice-President (Student Affairs), Lin was heavily involved with ASUS marketing.

“I think that knowing how both of these Societies work and being a part of two very different but amazing teams has really made me realize how similar these Societies are,” she said.

“I think it would be really nice to bring the two together, especially with other faculty society centres,” Lin added.